Last Walk

Last walk is the quiet one, after we've eaten and played, after the stars have been scraped from the sky by a wash of high, passing clouds, distant and nearly transparent like streaks on a pane of glass. It is a reflective walk along the silent street and we have only the sound of our feet on the pavement and in the grass and my soft whistle to accompany us. Very few people are out and nearly all of them are accompanied by their dogs, who are content to merely pass each other in silence, with perhaps a fleeting tail wag as their only acknowledgment of each other. It is a dreaming walk in which shadows play under a hazy moon that has been framed by clouds in such a way as to look like an eye watching over us, guiding us out and then back again, up the thirty-seven steps to the door, behind which a warm bed and a hug of soft pillows await.